Improving access of population to quality information and services on reproductive health and rightsUNFPA jointly with implementing partner, Uzbek Association for Reproductive Health (UARH), is realizing the project titled “Improving access of population to quality information and services on reproductive health and rights” co-financed by IPPF-EN. Within the sub-project of this project “Male involvement into reproductive health and rights issues in Uzbekistan” it’s aimed to involve 10 000 military servicemen/military students and 1 000 family members (wife) of military servicemen in Andijan, Namangan, Fergana, Surkhandarya, Samarkand, Djizzakh, Navoi, Khorezm regions, Republic of Karakalpakistan and Tashkent city in SRHR issues and demonstrate positive attitude and practices regarding SRHR through conducting information sessions by 10 trainers in the regions.
Background information:
Uzbekistan, the most populous country in Central Asia with a population of 30 million, has crude birth rate of 21 per thousand. 50% from the whole population are men. Today we can note that in Uzbekistan there is revaluation of the significance of health and reproductive health in particular.
At the same time, the certain problems in the field of creation necessary for provision of full-value health of women and men of reproductive ages, effective fulfillment of state guarantees on implementation, safeguard and protection of the sexual and reproductive rights of citizens are not solved. Both subjective and objective evidence stipulate a charter and specificity of these problems. On the one hand, the solution of the problems in the field of reproductive health does not depend on common people and more often is connected with social and economic conditions of the country, in particular of concrete oblast, region. On the other hand, they are influenced by socio-cultural values and purposes, stereotypes of consciousness and behavior that prevail in the given specific society.
Taking the above mentioned into consideration it is necessary to change this vision on the problem, because in our country men considers that only women herself must be responsible for SRHR issues and it is not priority for men. Such attitude can be especially noticed in Fergana valley (Andijan, Namangan and Fergana regions), where religious traditions still play main role and women really doesn’t make any decisions regarding birth interval, family planning issues and etc.
Besides that there is a lack of knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and rights issues in general. Sometimes people, mainly men are unaware of the risk of infection through sexual activity. Taking into consideration the results of conducted surveys by the UARH, we can note that the knowledge of population and youth in the field of sexual reproductive health are still poor and not sufficient and a lot of needs regarding family planning and using of different methods of contraception remains mostly unsatisfied for women and men as well.
In this connection, it is necessary to implement special informational – educational programs, directed on overcoming of traditional taboo on the SRHR issues, providing of qualified information, regarding sexual reproductive health and rights, including using modern methods of contraception also involving men to those issues, which are of great importance.
